Week 18 - Interacting with Tough Content, Self-care, wellness

Chronic disease

A health condition that persists over time, typically for periods longer than three months (e.g., HIV, asthma, diabetes).

Health psychology

New, interdisciplinary field of study that focuses on the psychological factors that can play a significant role in who develops these diseases, the prognosis, the nature of the symptoms related to the illness, and role of psychology in maintaining health, as well as preventing and treating illness

Biopsychosocial model of health

An approach to studying health and human function that posits the importance of biological, psychological, and social (or environmental) processes. These factors are just as important in the development of disease as biological causes (e.g., germs, viruses), which is consistent with the WHO (1946) definition of health

Health

According to the World Health Organization, it is a complete state of physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

Biomedical model of health

An older, reductionist model that posits that ill health is a result of a deviation from normal function, which is explained by the presence of pathogens, injury, or genetic abnormality.

Mind-body connection

The idea that our emotions and thoughts can affect how our body functions.

Psychosomatic medicine

An interdisciplinary field of study that focuses on how biological, psychological, and social processes contribute to physiological changes in the body and health over time.

Psychoneuroimmunology

A field of study examining the relationship among psychology, brain function, and immune function.

Fields of study for health psychology researchers

Interest in understanding how psychological factors can “get under the skin” and influence our physiology in order to better understand how factors like stress can make us sick.

Inducing a cold: stress and health study

Researchers deliberately expose participants to cold virus, and measure objective illness. Those who were less stressed and more positive at the beginning of the study are less likely to develop a cold. Not only major stressors but daily hassles impacted results - altered stress hormones and suppressed immune system

Stress - Hans Selye

A pattern of physical and psychological responses in an organism after it perceives a threatening event that disturbs its homeostasis and taxes its abilities to cope with the event.

General adaptation syndrome

A three-phase model of stress, which includes a mobilization of physiological resources phase, a coping phase, and an exhaustion phase (i.e., when an organism fails to cope with the stress adequately and depletes its resources).

Selye’s discovering of stress and general adaptation syndrome

Noticed all rats injected with ovarian hormone produced same sickness - realized it was not the hormone that produced the sickness but the aversive experience of being handled and injected by researchers that led to high physiological arousal and, eventually, to health problems like ulcers.

Resilience

The ability to “bounce back” from negative situations (e.g., illness, stress) to normal functioning or to simply not show poor outcomes in the face of adversity. In some cases, resilience may lead to better functioning following the negative experience (e.g., post-traumatic growth).

Five factors studied regarding ability to protect or harm health

1. Coping

2. Control and Self-Efficacy

3. Social Relationships

4. Dispositions and Emotions

5. Stress Management

Coping categories

Problem focused coping (A set of coping strategies aimed at improving or changing stressful situations) and emotion focused coping (Coping strategy aimed at reducing the negative emotions associated with a stressful event.)

Problem focused coping

Actively addressing the event that is causing stress in an effort to solve the issue at hand. For example, when studying for an exam, to spend additional time over the weekend studying to make sure you understand all of the material.

Emotion focused coping

Regulates the emotions that come with stress. I.e a test: watching a funny movie to take your mind off the anxiety you are feeling. In the short term, emotion-focused coping might reduce feelings of stress, but problem-focused coping seems to have the greatest impact on mental wellness. However when uncontrollable events occur, emotion-focused may be a better strategy

Control and self-efficacy

Feeling like you have the power to change your environment or behavior if you need or want to. Even belief you have control over a stressful situation improves score on a test, and immune system functioning

Ecological validity of control impact on health

Older residents in assisted living facilities, which are notorious for low control, lived longer and showed better health outcomes when given control over something as simple as watering a plant or choosing when student volunteers came to visit

Self-efficacy

The belief that one can perform adequately in a specific situation. Closely related to control, in that people with high levels of this trait believe they can complete tasks and reach their goals. Higher self-efficacy can reduce stress and negative health behaviours

Impact of social isolation on health

Equal risk to disease development and death as risk associated with regular smoking. Some scientists believe our body has developed a physiological system that encourages us to seek out our relationships, especially in times of stress

Social integration

The size of your social network, lack of isolation, or number of social roles (e.g., son, sister, student, employee, team member).

Social support

The perception or actuality that we have a social network that can help us in times of need and provide us with a variety of useful resources (e.g., advice, love, money).

Type A behaviour

characterized by impatience, competitiveness, neuroticism, hostility, and anger. Found to be associated with double the risk of heart disease

Type B behaviour

reflects the absence of Type A characteristics and is represented by less competitive, aggressive, and hostile behavior patterns.

Hostility

An experience or trait with cognitive, behavioral, and emotional components. It often includes cynical thoughts, feelings of emotion, and aggressive behavior. Individuals are quick to get upset, and angry arousal can damage the arteries of the heart. Given their negative personality style, they will often lack a heath-protective supportive social network.

Biofeedback

The process by which physiological signals, not normally available to human perception, are transformed into easy-to-understand graphs or numbers. Individuals can then use this information to try to change bodily functioning (e.g., lower blood pressure, reduce muscle tension).

Health behaviours

Any behavior that is related to health—either good or bad. Some examples include regular exercise, flossing, and wearing sunscreen, versus negative behaviors like drunk driving, pulling all-nighters, or smoking

Health habits

Health behaviours become these when they are firmly established and performed automatically. For example, do you have to think about putting your seatbelt on or do you do it automatically? Habits are often developed early in life thanks to parental encouragement or the influence of our peer group.

Psychological factors that influence medical treatment outcomes

Women and people from higher socioeconomic backgrounds are more liekly to seek medical care. Some avoid due to stigma, financial obstacles, etc. Internet now influences decsion to see a doctor (38% report). Individuals do a poor job at assessing credibility of online info. poor communication and adhering to advice influence.

Adherence

In health, it is the ability of a patient to maintain a health behavior prescribed by a physician. This might include taking medication as prescribed, exercising more, or eating less high-fat food. With mobile tech, can now be monitored

Behavioural medicine

A field similar to health psychology that integrates psychological factors (e.g., emotion, behavior, cognition, and social factors) in the treatment of disease. This applied field includes clinical areas of study, such as occupational therapy, hypnosis, rehabilitation or medicine, and preventative medicine.

Mobile health (m-health)

Mobile apps that allow us to monitor our exercise levels and food intake, applications can be used to raise health awareness, support treatment and compliance, and remotely collect data on a variety of outcomes.

Subjective well-being (SWB)

Scientific term for happiness and life satisfaction—thinking and feeling that your life is going well, not badly. Relies mainly on self-reporting happiness, but validated these scales with other types of measures. Influenced by internal factors (personality, outlook), and external factors (society)

Major determinants of sybjective well-being

Person’s inborn temperament, the quality of their social relationships, the societies they live in, and their ability to meet their basic needs

Happiness

The popular word for subjective well-being. Scientists sometimes avoid using this term because it can refer to different things, such as feeling good, being satisfied, or even the causes of high subjective well-being.

Internal causes of happiness

The person’s outlook and habitual response tendencies that influence their happiness—for example, their temperament or optimistic outlook on life.

External causes of happiness

Situational factors outside the person that influence his or her subjective well-being, such as good and bad events and circumstances such as health and wealth.

Life satisfaction

A type of happiness - A person reflects on their life and judges to what degree it is going well, by whatever standards that person thinks are most important for a good life.

examples:

• i think my life is great

• I am satisfied with my job

Causes:

• a good income

• achieving ones goals

• high self-esteem

Frequent positive feelings

A major type of happiness - Desirable and pleasant feelings. Moods and emotions such as enjoyment and love are examples.

examples:

• enjoying life

• loving others

Causes:

• supportive friends

• interesting work

• extroversion

Infrequent negative feelings

A major type of happiness - Undesirable and unpleasant feelings that people tend to avoid if they can. Moods and emotions such as depression, anger, and worry are examples.

examples:

• few chronic worries

• rarely sad or angry

Causes:

• low neuroticism

• goals are in harmony

• positive outlook

Internal causes (top-down influences)

• inborn temperament: studies of twins indicate genes influence our happiness, twins typically have similar SWB

• personality and temperament: partly inborn, partly learned. ie. extroverts tend to have more positive feelings

• outlook: habits of noticing the good or culture can influence optimism/pesimism

• resilience: happy people tend to bounce back faster after loss

External causes (bottom-up influences)

• sufficient material resources: people have enough money to meet basic needs and fulfill goals

• sufficient social resources: everyone needs some supportive and trusted others

• desirable society: society of war, hunger and conflict is less happy than one with material resources, trust, helping

Money correlates with happiness?

Certain income level to meet basic needs is necessary, but past a point makes less difference to happiness. materialistic people tend to be less happy

Adaptation

The fact that after people first react to good or bad events, sometimes in a strong way, their feelings and reactions tend to dampen down over time and they return toward their original level of subjective well-being. Ie. weddings have initial high, then wear off - but negative life events like unemployment are harder to adapt to

Positive outcomes of happiness

• health and longevity: happy people have stronger immune systems and perform healthy behaviour

• social relationships: happy people are more popular, and have stable and rewarding relationships

• productivity: work units with greater SWB are more productive, earn more money

• citizenship: people are more likely to donate time and money

Self report scales

Self-report surveys or questionnaires in which participants indicate their levels of subjective well-being, by responding to items with a number that indicates how well off they feel.